Scorched
by Mage-Alia
Summary: Even after so many assurances, Voldemort manages to reach the one sanctuary Harry had left, and then the Dursleys finished it for him. But something steps in when Harry dies. Something that no one has the power to counter. A spirit of the scorned. HP AU


Disclaimer: I do not in any way shape or form claim anything Harry Potter related as my own. It's the property of JK Rowling... Lucky bitch.

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><p>Harry Potter AU<p>

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><p>Scorched<p>

By Mage-Alia

Chapter 1

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><p>Summary: He never thought Voldemort would find him, after so many assurances he manages to reach the one sanctuary he had left, and then the Dursleys finished it for him, but something steps in when Harry dies. Something that no one has the power to counter...A spirit of the scorned.<p>

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><p>AN: Yet another plot bunny I shouldn't be starting. :)

I think I'm just posting them to get them out of my head now.

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><p>Harry could scarcely believe that his relatives could do something so vile as to nearly kill him.<p>

Sure they were neglectful and abusive, driven by their fear of the unknown and resentful of his existence and the reminders of different times that he brought about.

But to try and kill him?

Harry didn't even know why it surprised him. It shouldn't have. But it did.

So as he lay in a rapidly cooling pool of his own blood he stared up at the blackened ceiling above him and wondered where it had all changed to turn out like this.

But then again, he didn't really need to wonder.

Voldemort.

He was the beginning and the end of it all.

Looking through Harry's eyes, he had seen into his life, seeing the Dursleys and plotted away. By some stroke of luck, the blood wards on the Dursley residence still stood. Voldemort, could not get past them. But the message carried by the black owl could. A neat black envelope with a black seal had arrived at the breakfast table and Vernon had snatched it up. tearing it open to read before looking up at Harry with greedy eyes.

Voldemort had told them that if they killed him, he'd leave them alone... maybe even reward them with riches beyond their wildest imagination.

Vernon. Hadn't even given a spare thought to the consequences. Before harry could listen to his screaming instincts and leap from his chair Vernon's steak knife had been buried into his shoulder. Petunia had screamed, her hands flying to her mouth to smother the noise before she'd turned and demanded to know why he'd done that. His uncle had all but shouted at her to read the letter and she had looking between them with wide eyes she'd hesitated, horrified, but did not move.

She couldn't bring herself to egg Vernon on... but she didn't stop him either.

When he'd been stabbed, Harry had jerked violently and thrown himself out of his chair. The pain had been blinding as he'd scrambled for anything at all to defend himself from the sudden onslaught. His right arm felt dead in its socket, hanging limply where the knife had managed to cut some of the muscle that usually held it up.

Harry had managed to push himself up against a wall before Dudley, the boy who had grown up with the instinct to hurt harry ingrained into him by a lifetime of his own abuse at the hands of his parents, decided to join in. He kicked him back down, clipping the handle of the knife and tugging it downward as he went.

Harry screamed in spite of himself. The serrated edges of the blade doing more and more damage as it was twisted in the wound.

His glasses were the next to go, flying off his face when Vernon's fist came out of nowhere so punch drunk, and dazed with pain Harry didn't see when things started to go flying. His magic flailed. Pulling things off the shelves and lobbing them at Vernon's back in a futile effort to save it's host. Harry felt when the pressure started to build in his ears as his magic tried to take him away, but the heavy pressure of the anti apparition wards all up and down the street prevented him from moving.

if he had been capable of making a noise without screaming, he might have laughed at the Irony as the measures put in place to protect him, only made it all worse. He didn't register when something finally caught fire. One of the magic hurled objects hit the stove where Petunia had been frying something and caught fire. His power had latched onto it, feeding the flames, making them rise dangerously and make Petunia scream as it lashed out at her hair. Vernon had noticed then, he'd taken one look at her but instead of going to help Petunia he'd turned back on Harry and renewed the beating.

The fire had spread unimpeded and only when they couldn't see for smoke did Vernon and Dudley look up to see that their house was burning to the ground around them. They'd run for it then. The sirens of the fire brigade sounded down the street as the neighbours alerted them to the panic. Petunia had run for the door, still alight and screaming when she'd tripped and fallen to the front path. Muggles had come in droves to help, eager hands reaching to assist as the Dursleys emerged, but not without wounds to show for it. Petunia's scalp was burned beyond recognition, her face, chest and arms not much better. Vernon was choking on the smoke and Dudley had a heart attack from the combined substance abuse, exertion and his weight.

But none of them even thought to mention that their nephew was still in the house, unable to move to save himself.

So Harry finally managed to see through the haze of pain and looked up at the black curls making their way to the ceiling above him as the house burned.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, he couldn't feel, taste or smell... and the last thought he had before it all went black...

_'Where was the order?'_

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><p><strong><em>*GASP*<em>**

His throat hurt like razor wire as he coughed up ash and blood. Pain ripped through him in waves as he arched involuntarily off the floor feeling the cool spray of water as it rained down around him. He felt more than saw someone lean over him as his almost non-existent eyes gaped open to darkness.

He wanted to call for help, to say something, but all he could do was gasp.

There was a flurry of movement he couldn't hear before something or someone touched his neck and gravity shifted as he was lifted.

He couldn't feel anything.

He wanted to shout at them, "I'm alive!" but he just kept gasping as the air changed.

The movement he'd sensed halted as he was placed down and resumed again as whatever he'd been placed on started moving.

'Gurney' his mind supplied the term, having nothing to do but think. In the black silence that was now his world, that he could feel anything was a miracle in his mind. 'Ambulance' his mind supplied again as a slight inertial force took over. 'They're taking me to a hospital.' In his mind's eye he could see the lights and hear the sirens, and for a moment he let them fill the silence before he pushed them into the background.

Why was he in an ambulance again?

Oh, his relatives...

If he'd still had tear ducts he might have cried, although unnoticed the tone of his gasping changed, alarming the paramedics caring for him on the outside. One of them recognised it for what it was and felt a wave of pity.

Outside, the unidentified, charred black teen sized burn victim, john doe, was crying. Or trying too.

They must have knocked him out, or maybe he'd blacked out in an attempt to escape the empty feeling, but the world turned black and it felt like much later when the faint impressions of existence returned outside his darkened realm. He felt like he was floating and the air that found its way forcefully into his lungs was almost cold against the back of his throat when he heard the first noise.

Footsteps trailed across his mind.

He knew the intrusion had to be in his head, because he couldn't _see/feel/hear_ anything outside it.

His mind's eye noticed the small girl shambling through the dark and watched her intently as she approached, coming to a stop in front of him. Harry thought for a moment, wondering who she was, but ultimately remaining silent as she appeared to look him up and down.

**"I**** am...****darkness."** She answered his unspoken question.

Darkness? Why was she here?

**"You called me." **

Harry watched her impassively as she approached, leaning over him, examining his burnt body inch by inch.

What do you want?

**"Whatever you want." **

If he could have he might have frowned.

Why?

**"Because I am vengeance." **

Harry lay, his emotions as dead as his nerves. Why would he need vengeance?

_**"They ****killed**** you."**_ Darkness once again answered his question.

But I am alive.

**"Not for much longer." **

He focused on her, his eyes blank even in his own mind.

**"I ****can**** make ****it ****better."** She continued, holding out a small child sized hand. **"Come**** with ****me**** and**** I ****will**** give**** you**** vengeance."**

He looked at her for a little while longer, before he looked away into the darkness.

Why?

The question, with no emotional inflection, was almost like that of a child. One who incessantly asked about the world around them without the enthusiasm that usually might have accompanied it. Why did he need vengeance?

**"Because they have hurt you. All of them have hurt you. None of them came."**

Why?

**"You already know the answer to that." **

And he did. Somewhere in the bleak darkness behind the girl, a small desperate voice was crying out. _Nobody loved us._

A slow, sinister smile travelled across her lips as she stared down at him with blank eyes.

**"Will**** you ****come ****with ****me?"** She whispered.

And in his mind, without a body and without form, he reached out.

And she took his hands, causing his world to light up in a cataphony of blessed light noise and agony.

_**"Welcome **__**back..."**_ she murmured, and this time when the world went black, it was to the feel of pain. A very real sensation in a faked world.

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><p>AN: I guess you could call this a bit of a Silent Hill Fusion... well, the concept of Darkness is kinda lifted from the movieverse in any case. I honestly don't know enough about the games to place her there... but if I do continue this she'll prolly be rather different, I'm not really looking at a silent hill scenario with this story.

In any case.

Don't forget to review!

Cya


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